First, I have to admit what I posted before as a Notan, wasn’t.  A Notan shows a division of value, so the picture should show light, medium and dark values.  That’s what I get for posting late at night….or maybe that’s what you get!   Anyway, the picture below shows the real Notan for the 100 painting challenge.  The drawing that I posted before would normally be done after the Notan.   Anyway, here it is drawn in the actual 5 X 7 size…..which I may already be regretting.  I thought they would go faster, but perhaps my choice of landscape is too detailed for this………never fear!   I am ready and willing to meet the challenge!

Real Notan 11-12

Now, below you will see two photos.  First, is the basic drawing lines  when I started and second is what I accomplished in 30 minutes.  BOY, DID I LEARN A LESSON TONIGHT!

Many of the artists had been talking about using up small pieces of various pastel papers….which sounded great to me.   And then I decided to get VERY brave and start out with black paper.  Many pastels are done on black paper and I had a couple small sheets, although now I’m not sure why I saved them because I don’t really enjoy working on black.   BUT the biggest surprise of all was learning that it wasn’t in fact pastel paper!

So, the 30 minutes were spent smushing pastel into this slick surface and covering up the black while trying to make the painting resemble in some way the landscape I had decided to use.  Consequently, there is very little detail in the painting.  I could have stopped at any time and moved to the proper paper, but I admit I’m stubborn and decided since the clock was ticking, I would do the best I could.

Who knows?  They may all turn out this way…..but, I hope not.

In each of the following 99 paintings, I will be shifting values, color combinations, etc., with the aim of learning what happens when you break the rules and just go for it.  (Seems like I already know how to do that, doesn’t it?)

Here are the sketch and Painting #1  (despite paragraphs above, IT WAS FUN!!!!)

1-black paper

1-finished-2

2 Responses to “1 Down – 99 To Go”

  1. Leila Schnyder says:

    What an interesting experiment. I can only imagine what a full piece of art done on black would look like. Black can often make a picture “pop”. I often used black paper to back children’s art as a sort of frame, and would see this pop occur.
    I like what you’ve done. It looks quite loose and natural.
    Leial

  2. thom says:

    break the rules! BREAK THEM!

    yay 99 to go

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